QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR OF THREE AUK SPECIES (CHARADRIIFORMES, ALCIDAE): CRESTED AUKLET (AETHIA CRISTATELLA), PARAKEET AUKLET (CYCLORRHYNCHUS PSITTACULA), AND HORNED PUFFIN (FRATERCULA CORNICULATA)

摘要

The works on the comparison of social behavior of non-passerine birds are rather rare; however, they are useful for insight into the general theoretical issues, such as the evolution of birds' social behavior. The aim of this work is the quantitative comparison of the birds' behavior on the colony surface and its dependency on different factors such as the phase of breeding season and social environment in three auk species. The objects of this research are crested auklet, parakeet auklet, and horned puffin. All of them are colonial seabirds of the North Pacific. They possess a number of similar biological features, but differ in colonial and club size, nesting density, types of communication, and social activity. We compiled a catalog of postures and displays for three auk species and found significant interspecies differences in the occurrence of almost all the forms of behavior; the crested auklet, compared to the other species, spent the longest time on social interaction, whereas the horned puffin -he least time. The occurrence of all forms of behavior was similar before and after chicks hatching in all three species. In the presence of a conspecific neighbor within a radius of two corpuses, individuals of all three species spent more time on social interaction, while the conspecifics number in a radius of five corpuses had little or no effect on the occurrence of various forms of behavior. Thus, interspecific differences in time budgets of the species were displayed only in the frequency of occurrence of various behavior forms, whereas the tested factors similarly influenced the time budgets of all the species studied.